How Porsche made the perfect start in WEC despite late drama in Qatar

Porsche dominated the Qatar 1812Km last Saturday on the way to a maiden win in the World Endurance Championship for the 963 and a first series victory for an LMDh prototype. Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer were never headed from late in the second hour of a race that hit its full distance four minutes short of the 10-hour cut-off. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the drivers of the #6 car. A late unscheduled pitstop after the car sustained body damage set doubts racing in Estre’s mind.

When the Frenchman was instructed to pit with seven laps of the 335 to go, his reaction was “ahh, come on”. A series of clashes with LMGT3 machinery over the final quarter of the race had damaged both the left sidepod and the floor, and he knew that anything but the briefest of repairs was going to rip victory from his and his team-mates’ grasp. But Estre was told not to worry. All the Penske Porsche Motorsport crew had to do was affix a new adhesive race number to replace the one that had gone west with a chunk of the bodywork behind the wheel. The rules state that race numbers “must remain visible in all circumstances”.

Just 47 seconds were lost, pit-in to pit-out, which meant the #6 car emerged with a lead over Jean-Eric Vergne in the chasing Peugeot 9X8 that still stood at a shade under 40s. A first outright WEC victory Porsche since its last with the 919 Hybrid LMP1 at Austin in September 2017 was now a formality. 

“The car was pretty tough to drive,” said Estre of the battle-scared 963 at the end. “I was told the underfloor was smashed, that there was a hole in the bodywork, and it felt like it. I had a lot of understeer. On my own, it was kind of OK, though with a bit of vibration, but when I was following another car I was definitely struggling. But the gap stayed pretty constant, so I was confident.”

Had the pitstop that briefly caused Estre’s concerns ended up costing him and his team-mates the victory, it would have been a travesty of the highest order. So too if the stewards had decreed that the ‘leader lights’ - the illuminations that show if a car is running in the top three - also had to be replaced. They had exited stage left with the portion of bodywork that carried them and the race number. The rule on that one is less clear cut.

Porsche had an advantage in the Middle East that it had exhibited from the beginning of the week and the delayed two-day pre-season Prologue test on the Losail International Circuit. The factory Porsche team and its customer Jota squad shared out the top spot in the four sessions of the Prologue on the Monday and Tuesday, and then Penske ended up quickest in two of the three practice periods. Matt Campbell then continued his dream start to 2024, which had encompassed victories in the Daytona 24 Hours and Bathurst 12 Hour, by taking pole. But come the race it was the sister Porsche, qualified only fifth by Estre after he reckoned he “hadn’t got the best out of the car”, that was in the ascendent. Jota boss Sam Hignett reckoned #6 was “in a class of its own - untouchable”.

The #6 Porsche couldn't match the sister #5 car's qualifying pace but on a race run it a step above

Photo by: Shameem Fahath

Yet if Estre had the heebie-jeebies at the end of proceedings, so did Vanthoor at the beginning of a race that went the full distance of 1812km — which takes its name from the 18 December National Day public holiday - thanks to just two caution periods, a pair of quick-fire Full Course Yellows. Vanthoor lost a place at the start and was only fifth by the time of the first round of pitstops. He admitted to taking a conservative approach during the opening laps. 

“I was a bit pissed off losing out at the start and a couple of times I had my nose between two cars,” said the Belgian. “But I thought, this is a 10-hour race, try to be smart. We came back quite well and I was able to save some fuel in the process.”

So well did he come back, in fact, that when the second round of stops kicked off, Vanthoor was at the front of the field and a handful of seconds up on the second-placed Peugeot 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar with Nico Muller at the wheel. 

Jota opted for an innovative strategy on both the second-place car and the sister #38 car shared by Jenson Button, Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen. It triple-stinted the hard Michelin through the race, swapping drivers at each pitstop, with the exception of one double in the middle of proceedings

Estre extended the lead to as much as 40s over his double before Vergne made some inroads when Lotterer took over the Porsche. Muller then came back at Vanthoor when the starting drivers returned. Peugeot gambled on using the medium Michelin tyre in the cooler temperatures after darkness had fallen, while Porsche stayed on the hard all race. It looked like an inspired tactic by a manufacturer that was best of the LMH pack ahead of Toyota and Ferrari on Saturday. The Swiss closed down the leader, reducing the deficit to as little as nine seconds. But in the second half of their doubles, the Porsche pulled clear as the Peugeot’s tyres went away. When Vanthoor got out to hand back to Estre, the lead was back up to over 40s and continued to grow. It was up to well over a minute before the drama of the closing stages. 

The end-of-race excitement continued after it became apparent that Estre was home and dry. Vergne was looking good for second in the Peugeot he shared with Muller and Mikkel Jensen, despite having Callum Ilott in the best of the Jota Porsches little more than a second behind. Only, he suddenly slowed at the beginning of the penultimate lap and stopped just after the pits before resuming slowly. 

The car had run out of fuel but was able to complete a slow lap on front axle hybrid power to cross the line a lap in seventh. But because he had deployed electric power below the 150km/h (90mph) minimum allowed to the 9X8 under the Balance of Performance and then didn’t make it into parc ferme, the car was struck from the results. It was a sad way for the original version of the 9X8 to bow out after its most competitive showing yet, or at least its best performance over a full race distance. 

The #93 Peugeot was cruelly denied a podium finish on the wingless 9X8's final outing as the car ran out of fuel on the penultimate lap

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Exactly why it had run out of fuel wasn’t understood by the team in the immediate aftermath of the race. “We think it is something between the refuelling tower and the car,” said Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie. “We need to further investigate the problem.”

Peugeot’s bad luck was Porsche’s - and Jota’s - good fortune. It promoted the #12 Jota car shared by Will Stevens, Ilott and Norman Nato to second and the #5 factory car of Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki to third to give the German manufacturer a clean sweep of the podium. Ilott crossed the line 33s in arrears of Estre, Campbell a further second behind. 

Jota opted for an innovative strategy on both the second-place car and the sister #38 car shared by Jenson Button, Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen. It triple-stinted the hard Michelin through the race, swapping drivers at each pitstop, with the exception of one double in the middle of proceedings. 

“It was an idea we had before arriving after testing here late last year and we committed to the strategy early in the week,” explained Stevens. “There’s quite a big delta between having cold tyres and hot tyres, and if you over-push when they’re new, they can easily grain.”

Jota’s strategy was based on the principle that less time spent on cold rubber - no tyre warmers in the WEC these days, remember - would result in reduced time loss, as well as minimising the risk of graining. Its worth was validated by a finish ahead of the #5, which was handicapped by tyre issues. Or rather Christensen was. 

Twice the Dane was forced to cut short a double on the hard as the hard-used left-rear started to deteriorate at a rapid rate. The cause of an issue that hadn’t raised its head earlier in the week was unknown. Damage from the MotoGP-style kerbs, with a lip on their furthest edge was one possibility, reckoned Penske. 

The #38 Jota Porsche's plan to minimise time on cold tyres was key to its podium charge

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The second Jota car wouldn’t have made it a Porsche 1-2-3-4 had it completed the race. It was running seventh — and would likely have ended up sixth — when the hybrid warning light came on 40 minutes before the chequered flag. It was the result of an electrical isolation problem of unconfirmed origins. A component failure or a fluid leak was suspected.

By the time Rasmussen brought the car into the pits for what turned out to be its retirement, the Ganassi Cadillac V-Series.R and AF Corse’s satellite 499P LMH were already ahead. The Caddy was always playing catch-up after Lynn was tapped from behind at the first corner by Hanson and pushed into Paul di Resta in the #94 Peugeot. Damage was sustained to both ends of the American car, which forced a double bodywork change at its first pitstop. Half a minute was lost, but the strategy the team had planned from the beginning got the car up to the best of the rest once the #93 Peugeot had faltered. Fuel-saving was the name of the game for the Cadillac Racing team, which got through the race on nine pitstops rather than 10 — or even 11 - of the cars around it.

“There was some pretty aggressive fuel save out there,” said Lynn, who shared the car with Earl Bamber and Sebastien Bourdais. “That was the plan and it definitely worked for us.”

Even though new Toyota race driver Nyck de Vries pulled something out of the bag to qualify second, the Japanese manufacturer went into the race meeting with a damage-limitation plan

Lynn was under no illusions that Porsche was beatable on Saturday, even if the solo Cadillac had looked like a contender from the beginning of the week: it was the only non-Porsche to top a session. “To come home as best brand after them is a more than decent result after the early delay,” he said. “We had good pace, but not Porsche pace. Fourth was as good as it was going to get.”

Ferrari could say the same about the fifth place collected by its satellite Hypercar entry run by AF Corse and driven by factory contractees Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman along with Robert Kubica. The yellow 499P upheld the Italian manufacturer’s honour on a day that the two factory cars were delayed on the way to seventh (#50) and 13th (#51). 

The #50 car lost time with two penalties, for pit-entry and refuelling infringements, while #51 lost four minutes in the second hour after its tail section flew off following the lightest of impacts with one of the United Autosport LMGT3 McLarens. It received a couple of penalties too, one for running the Proton Competition Porsche up against the pit wall as it passed the Ferrari on the way to the final point for 10th.

Both factory Ferrari cars were hampered by multiple issues which dented its hopes

Photo by: Shameem Fahath

Toyota, meanwhile, wasn’t pleased with sixth and ninth for the #7 and #8 GR010 HYBRIDs that shared half a dozen victories last year. Even though new Toyota race driver Nyck de Vries pulled something out of the bag to qualify second, the Japanese manufacturer went into the race meeting with a damage-limitation plan. New Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury reckoned he’d be happy with two cars in the points, though with mission accomplished he didn’t look that way on Saturday night.

Both of the winning manufacturers from 2023 struggled around the 3.37-mile Losail circuit. It was certainly no coincidence that their machinery was up there in the weight stakes under the Balance of Performance published ahead of the Prologue. Toyota was the heaviest car in the field at 1089kg, the Ferrari third heaviest at 1075kg. Or to put it another way, they hit the scales respectively 41 and 27kg heavier than the Porsche. 

Both manufacturers believed that the effect of the weight was greater in Qatar than on the tracks visited by the WEC last year. That was the result of both the layout of Losail and its all-new surface after a major overhaul of the facility. 

Toyota suggested that it had reached a tipping point, that the extra 9kg gained since last year had hit the GR010 exponentially. Ferrari couldn’t use the same argument given that the 499P was racing at the same weight as at the end of 2023. But the graining effect of which Stevens talked undoubtedly hit the heavier cars hardest. The more weight, the more the car slides when the tyres are cold, the cause of graining. The way to avoid graining is to warm the tyres slowly with an inevitable time loss. 

The characteristics of the Losail venue also played into Peugeot’s hands. It has never been able to make the 9X8 work across a range of circuits, which is why a Mk2 version will arrive at Imola next month. But work, the original did, in Qatar. The track surface helped, as much the absence of bumps on the fine asphalt, as did the proliferation of fast to medium-speed corners and the absence of slow ones. Then there was a bit of help under the BoP: weight was down from 1041 to 1030kg with no change in power, the class maximum of 520kW (697bhp). 

As good as the Peugeot was, it wasn’t close to the Porsche. The 963 was, said Vanthoor, “a joy to drive”. It certainly looked that way on the stopwatch.

It was a damage limitation race for Toyota as BoP changes hurt it the most

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Alpine tops the newcomers

Alpine notched up a notable achievement as the first of the Hypercar newcomers home in Qatar, doubly so because it got one of its A424 LMDhs in the points. It was nip and tuck between the Renault brand and BMW for unofficial class honours, the deciding factor being some drastic fuel saving by Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin that ultimately yielded them eighth because they were able to complete the race on one fewer pitstops than their immediate rivals. 

The #35 was one of only two cars in Hypercar to go through the race on nine stops. Unlike Cadillac, however, Alpine didn’t set out with that aim. “It was just that I saved a load of fuel over the first stint and we decided to carry on like that,” said Habsburg. “It felt like the right thing to do and it paid off. We knew we didn’t have the pace of the guys at the front, so we just tried to save a lap every stint.”

Finishing was always top of Alpine’s priorities, and it achieved that with both cars, Mick Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere coming home 12th six seconds behind the WRT BMW M Hybrid shared by Robin Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde. The team’s #15 car driven by Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann ended up 15th. It was right with the sister car until late in the penultimate hour when it lost 10 minutes to a throttle problem. 

“We did not have the tools to fight for a better position. Of course, we will improve, maybe by two tenths, maybe by 2.1” WRT boss Vincent Vosse

WRT boss Vincent Vosse pointed out that the two cars had clean races — with just one penalty between them — and that the team had gathered a lot of data. But he took a veiled swipe at the Balance of Performance. “We did not have the tools to fight for a better position,” he said. “Of course, we will improve, maybe by two-tenths, maybe by 2.1.” That would make only a small indent into the one-second or so margin on race pace to the Porsche. 

The solo Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 came home 14th and five laps down on the winning Porsche, but team principal Andrea Piccini was again taking positives from the car’s debut. That was despite the car being slightly further behind Porsche than BMW. 

“We finished the race, that was important,” he said. “The pace wasn’t too bad and I think the team did a good job.”

Alpine took the best of the newcomers honour but it wasn't a sparkling show by any of the debutants

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images